Richard Overy on Franklin D. Roosevelt

“In 1920 he was chosen by James Cox, the Democrat candidate, to run as Vice-President. It was his first setback. He campaigned on support for the League of Nations, which America had not yet joined, but found the tide of opinion isolationist. In the Republican landslide he failed to win even his home state of New York. The following year, at age 39, he was struck by polio and paralysed from the waist down. He withdrew from politics to fight his affliction. Those who knew him well found him transformed by the struggle. The young politician had an arrogance, an intolerance of weakness, a hint of superficiality, that marred his energy and charm. During the seven years it took him to recover he became a more humble and more sympathetic personality. 'He was serious,' Roosevelt's Secretary for Labour Frances Perkins later wrote, 'not playing now.'”

“Roosevelt was certainly an ambitious President, who disliked the obstruction of his policies. He devoted most of his energy to short-term political tactics, and was never choosy about the allies he found. He was obsessed with public opinion and his own popularity. He was an unsophisticated idealist, who once confessed that his political outlook could be summed up in two words: Democrat and Christian. Though the idealism was genuine enough, friends and colleagues found his views on most issues ill-defined and pragmatic. Roosevelt's instinct for political survival created in him a distrust of ideological conviction. Charles Bohlen, who interpreted for him at Teheran, thought the President 'preferred to work by improvisation than by plan'. He disliked putting anything down on paper, and instead did much of his work in informal conversations, throwing round ideas, exploring options, testing the water. He could be disarming, flattering, cheerful, supportive, but was, by general agreement of those around him, difficult to pin down. 'Not a tidy mind,' wrote an otherwise sympathetic British observer.”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt was everything Stalin was not. He was born in 1882 into a wealthy New York family, on a 100-acre estate beside the Hudson river. He had every social advantage. Excessively pampered by his mother, Roosevelt was first sent to the exclusive school at Groton, Connecticut, modeled on the English public school, then on to Harvard and to law school. He was not outstanding academically, but the tall, distinguished, sociable patrician, a member of America's untitled aristocracy, needed little more than his name and background when he launched himself into politics in 1910. He had no particular scruples about which party to join; his cousin, Theodore, was the Republican President, but he adopted the Democrat ticket because they asked him to stand first. He soon became a political high-flyer. In 1913 he was appointed Assistant Secretary for the Navy. He was a solid administrator, and also an arch politician, utterly absorbed by the art of politics. A college friend remembered a man "extremely ambitious to be popular and powerful." He had many Republican friends, whose social world he shared, but made his name fighting on issues for the common man.”

“Roosevelt the shrewd tactician and Roosevelt the idealist were difficult to reconcile. This was particularly so in time of war. Though his public stance in the 1930s against violence- 'I hate war'- helped to maintain domestic support among a largely isolationist population, it was difficult for him to hide his hatred of fascism and his expectation that America at some point would become involved with keeping the peace abroad. The ambiguities in this position were sufficiently pronounced to make it almost impossible for the American public to decide just where their president stood on the issue of war, yet to make it just as difficult for Roosevelt to seize the initiative and side openly with the democracies in 1940 and 1941. When Japan attacked in December 1941 everything was simplified for people and President alike: isolationism was dead as a political force and Roosevelt could lead his people in war unfettered by hostile opinion. He brought to the role of war leader some admirably suitable qualities. His was a big personality, made larger by years of publicity and the calculated wooing of popular approval. He had unrivalled experience in politics, having spent eight years in the highest office in the land. When it came to a job of work he was not hostage to party prejudice but hired Republican and Democrat alike. He was adept at managing Congress, and at building bridges between many constituencies- ethnic, political, religious- that made up American society.”